Sunday, July 31, 2016

After the first Mass this morning, a parishioner asked, "Who was that priest we prayed for among the deceased?" If was Fr. Jacques Hamel, the elderly French priest who was killed in his parish church by ISIS terrorists last Tuesday. Given the horrific circumstances of his death, I figured our prayers could help. Even more, I was encouraged by what I heard on the news this morning: that, all across France, Muslim men and women were attending Mass at Catholic Churches as a sign of solidarity. I couldn't help but think that I was seeing this folktale unfold in real life...

There’s an African folktale about a young man who married a
woman whose brother was blind.Wanting
to get to known his brother-in-law better, he invited him to go hunting.“Since I cannot see,” he answered, “I
will certainly need your help, but—yes—I will go hunting.”As the two are walking together through
the bush, the young man is amazed at the blind man’s knowledge of the noises of
the wild.By their songs he
correctly identifies every bird—and even notes their movements, based on the
sounds of their wings.

When they reached their destination, the young man set two
traps.He set his own trap
in a well-hidden location, such that no bird would ever suspect danger.But he set his brother-in-law’s trap
out in the wide open—making no effort to conceal it, since it was hot, he was
tired, and the blind man wouldn’t know the difference.

The two men returned to the spot the next day.Before reaching it, the blind man said,
“We have caught something!I can hear
birds in our traps!”The young man
went first to his own, well-hidden trap, and within it found a small, brown
bird.But when he came to the blind
man’s trap, he found a large, beautiful bird, adorned with all the colors of
the rainbow.He knew the bird
would make a fine present for his wife, who would be impressed by its colorful
feathers, so he put this bird in his own pouch and handed the small, brown bird
to the blind man to place in his.

On their journey home, the two men rested in the shade of a
large tree, talking about many things.The young man soon recognized that the blind man was very wise, and so
he said, “I would like to ask you a question that has troubled me all of my
life.Why do men fight with one
another?”The blind man paused for
just a moment before replying, “Men fight because they do to each other what
you have just done to me.”The
young man was ashamed and stunned into silence.Not knowing what to say, he got up, took the brightly
colored bird out of his pouch, and gave it to his brother-in-law.

Taking the bird, the blind man asked, “Do you have any other
questions for me?”“Yes,” said the
young man, “I have one more.How
do men become friends after they have fought?”The blind man smiled and said, “They do what you just have
done.That is how men become
friends again.”(Based on, “A Blind Man Catches a Bird,” as written by Alexander McCall Smith and retold by Gioia Timpanelli)

This African folktale, like the words of Scripture we hear addressed
to us this Sunday, seem to come to us from a far simpler time and place…and yet
they speak so very poignantly to our supposedly “advanced” society. “Guard against all greed,” Jesus says, “for
life does not consist in possessions.”As much—if not more—than ever, ours is a time that loves things and uses
people, rather than the other way around.

We see it in our desire for cheap consumer goods—food,
clothes, technology—without giving much thought to the laborers who provide
them, the conditions under which they work, or how they’re being compensated.We see it in the widespread use and
acceptance of pornography, contraception, and abortion—almost without question,
which reduce other people to commodities or inconveniences.We see it in the degradation of the natural
environment, focused more on how we want to live today rather than if our
children will be able to live tomorrow.We even see it the way an 85-year-old French priest had his throat cut
on Tuesday as he offered daily Mass, in the name of promoting a radical
ideology.

When God created this immense and beautiful universe, when
he set the human race in and over it, God did so with a particular order and
plan built right into nature: that things are there to be used, and people are
there to be loved.He didn’t
intend his creation to be a vast moneymaking machine; he intended it to be a
vast saint-making machine.The
essential trajectory of our lives, then, isn’t meant to be along the road to
success; it’s to be along the path to holiness, the path to heaven—which is the
only sure path to happiness, both now and forever.

God has created things for us to use responsibly, and people
for us to love deeply, not the other way around.

In an age that’s constantly telling us—in ways both obvious
and subtle—to look out after our own interests, to build bigger barns, to store
up earthly treasures for ourselves, let us make sure that what we’re pursuing
are true riches: those that matter to God.

Having grown up on a farm, I have memories of going with my
dad to auctions—cattle auctions, equipment auctions.I love the back-and-forth of the auctioneer and the
bidders.It’s like a game or
dance—each one anticipating the next move of the other.Of course, they find themselves at
cross-purposes: the auctioneer trying to get the prices higher while the
bidders work hard to keep them low.

I’ve always thought of an auction when reading this Sunday’s
first reading: Abraham negotiating with the Lord over just how many righteous
people it will take to keep Sodom from being destroyed. “How about 50? Would that be enough? Or 45—can I get 45? How about 30? 20? Will you
give me 10?”

But reading that passage again as I prepared for Mass this
Sunday, a new and different image came to mind: the audacity of a little child trying to
“negotiate” something with his father.“Dad, you know I’d love an ice cream cone.Can I have one if I’m good all day?Of course, all day is a long time…so how about if I’m good this morning?Or
for the next hour?Would 10
minutes be enough?”I can see the
child moving in as he makes his case: closer and closer, eventually climbing
into his father’s arm’s, wrapping his arms around dad’s strong neck, and then
leaning in to whisper into his ear.The boy’s got one thing on his mind: getting that ice cream cone!But what does dad have to gain?Ten minutes of good
behavior—maybe?What the father
gets is what he wants the most: to have his son draw closer and closer to him.

Jesus gives his disciples—gives us—a lesson in persevering
prayer.He tells us to keep on
asking, to keep on seeking, to keep on knocking past midnight, if we must.He tells us to ask the Father each day for our daily bread.But why must we be so
persistent?Is it because God is
stubborn? Or hard of hearing?Is heaven so far from
earth that our messages rarely make it through?

Most of us approach prayer prepared to bargain. We pray as if it’s a matter of us
getting through to God; in fact, prayer is really all about God getting through to
us. We focus on what it is we hope
to get; God is focused on to whom he can get close. We can act as if prayer is a retail transaction, but to God,
it’s all about deepening a relationship.

Our patron, St. André Bessette, understood this well.Br. André used to say, “When you say to
God, ‘Our Father,’ he has his ear right next to your lips.”We move in close to seal the deal—to
win what we’re after—and God does the same: he longs to make us ever more his
own.

How about you?Do you pray to God as the Great Auctioneer in there Sky, hoping to
convince him that you're making an offer he can't refuse?Or do you pray like a child who puts full trust in his loving Father?

If you read a bit further into Genesis, you discover that
Abraham did not actually win the auction: there weren't 10 innocent souls to be found, and Sodom was destroyed for its many
sins.(The righteous were lead to
safety before the destruction began.)But Abraham did come to know the Lord much better through their back-and-forth
exchange.He discovered that God
is just—not willing to sweep away the innocent right along with the guilty.And he discovered that God is also merciful—giving
one opportunity after another to flee from sin, to be converted from death-dealing
to live-giving ways.And Abrahamdiscovered that God comes ever-so-close to
his children—close enough to hear and respond to their every call for help.

When you pray, give up on trying to bargain with God. Instead, draw close to him, and he’ll
draw close to you (James 4:8). Never tire of
whispering into your Father’s ear.

A point to ponder: What sort of welcome do we give to the Lord? Notice, it's not would we give but do we give, since Jesus keeps paying us visit after visit: in his word, in the sacraments (above all, the Eucharist), in the faces of the poor. Whether our hospitality is more active (like Martha) or more contemplative (like Mary), is Christ the center of our attention?

Sunday, July 10, 2016

In preparing for this Sunday, I tried to think of famous
neighbors I might use as familiar examples.The two who first came to mind perfectly fit the bill.To begin with, I thought of Dennis
Mitchell—better known to most of us as “Dennis the Menace.”From the comic strip, we know just how
Mr. Wilson feels about his much younger, very active neighbor: he’s too loud,
too messy, eats too much of his food, and breaks far too many windows.And then there was the second famous
neighbor: [singing] “It’s a beautiful
day in the neighborhood, a beautiful for a neighbor…”We all know Fred Rogers—that’s Mr. Rogers, of course.Through his TV show, we all became his
neighbors, and he introduced us to many others, as well.

Dennis Mitchell.Fred Rogers.If you got to
pick, which would you chose to be your neighbor?

The fact of the matter is we don’t generally get to pick our
neighbors, do we?“And who is my
neighbor?” asks the scholar in the gospel.Our neighbors are those God sends to us, whether they live
in the house next door or are sitting in the next pew; whether they have a
nearby locker at school or work with us on the job; whether they play with us
on the team or they’re driving in another car on the road.Our neighbors are neighbors simply for
being near to us, and—no matter who they are, what they do, or where they come from—we
are called to treat them love and care and compassion.

That’s a critical lesson in light of the news lately—so full
of shootings and strife, of refugees and fear of the stranger.We hear about these problems on a
national and global scale, worrying and wondering, “But what could I ever do to
make a difference?”Remember: you
and I haven’t been called to save the world. (That position has already been taken.)No, we’ve been called to love our
neighbors—without picking and choosing among them—and just imagine how the
whole world could be and would be transformed if each of us treated those
nearby with love.

“And who is my neighbor?”The question asked by the scholar of the law is what prompts
Jesus to tell the parable of the Good Samaritan.But did you notice how Jesus—as he often does—answered that
question with another question?Near the very end of the passage we’ve just heard, Jesus asks in
response, “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’
victim?”The difference between
the questions is rather subtle, but hugely significant.The first assumes that the neighbor is
somebody who is near to us, while the second urges us to draw near to someone
else as neighbor.The first is
passive, while the second is active.We aren’t to wait for a neighbor to come to us in need; we are to go and
be neighbor to others.

Being neighborly—reaching out—in this way is at the very heart
of being a Christian, because by it we imitate Jesus.In Jesus Christ, God has become neighbor to you and
me—moving right into the neighborhood, choosing to dwell among us, and
promising to remain with us always—no matter how much we behave like Dennis
Mitchell.And from the example of
Jesus we have so much to learn!We
can be tempted to only love those who seem deserving…but the Son of God came to
save us when we deserved it the least, yet needed it most.We can be tempted to love only those
who will recognize the gift and show their thanks….but how often are we
ungrateful for God’s blessings?We
can be tempted to only reach out when there’s room in our schedule…but was
their anything convenient about the Cross?

This is where the name of the upcoming diocesan vocations
summit is so instructive: INSPIRE: Called to Love.We all share a common
vocation—the call to reach out in love.And just as we don’t get to choose those who become our neighbors, nor
do we get to pick those to whom we are to go in love as neighbor.That’s the “inspired” part.The commands of God—we’re told in the
first reading—as so close to us that they’re already in our hearts.The same Holy Spirit who inspired the
writing of the scriptures dwells in your heart and mine, and still speaks to us:
“Go there!Do that!Help him!Speak to her!”But we must listen for and obey those inspirations.And when we do listen and obey, when we
reach out in love, when we become neighbor, we discover that in drawing close
to another person we’ve also drawn close to God.

We often find ourselves asking, like the scholar of the law,
“And who is my neighbor?” But the
more crucial question is the one once asked by Fred Rogers—asked by God of you and
me each and every day: [singing] “Would
you be mine? Could you be
mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?”

But a couple of weeks ago (June 23-24), we spent a different sort of night together: one out in the woods. We camped out at the two lean-tos at Catlin Bay on Long Lake. They were two stunning days spent in a rather spectacular spot. We were having so much fun, I didn't take any pictures... except of some pretty happy campers as we were about to head home...

Sunday, July 3, 2016

I recently heard a great story—a true story—on the radio,
told by a young man from New Mexico.He was traveling in rural India, in a tribal area in the northeast of
the country—a region of mountains, jungles, and wild animals.He found the local people fascinating
and exotic, and eventually realized they must find him a bit exotic, too, since
very few Westerners ever visited.

The young man had been traveling for an extended period of
time—more than a year.He had lost
some weight.While normally dark complected,
his skin was even darker than usual from all the time he’d spent in the
sun.And he’d given up on shaving
or cutting his hair, growing a bushy beard and hair down to his shoulders.

While hitchhiking one day, his driver told him about an
incredible place: the most religious, most pious village in the region, which
he simply had to see.(The area
had once been frequented by Christian missionaries.)So, after having been dropped off, the young man headed
right for the main square of this town.Normally, the first ones to see him walking into a village were the
children and the pets—and, on seeing a stranger, they would scamper off and
hide.In this village, some
children were out playing in the square, as usual, but when they looked up and
saw him, they instead fell to their knees and held hands.One of the little boys pulled out a
small picture; he’d look at the picture, then at the young man—back and forth
again and again.When the young
man got close enough, he could see that it was a picture of Jesus.

“They think I’m Jesus Christ!” he realized.

So the young man decided to have a little fun.He crossed his ankles, held his arms straight
out from his sides, and hung his head.It had the desired effect: the children gasped.But the next thing he knew, the young
man was writhing in pain on the ground.As he gathered his wits about him, he realized that one of the little
boys had gotten up off his knees, formed a fist, and punched him as hard as he
could in—let's just say—a place that would really, really hurt.As the young man began to get up, a
woman from the village came running toward him.“My son,” she said in her broken English.“My son angry.My son loved his grandmother.When she died, we told him Jesus
took her away….”

As St. Paul concludes his letter to the Galatians, he
writes: “I bear the marks of Jesus on my body” (Gal 6:17).For Paul, faith in Jesus was much more
than an idea in his head or a feeling in his heart; it was something he
experienced in a physical way, leaving its mark on his body.For Paul, those marks came from
beatings and stonings, from being shackled and nearly drowned, from being left
for dead.It was no figure of
speech when he wrote, “I bear the marks of Jesus on my body.”Following Jesus was written into his
flesh for all to see.

What does it look like today to bear the marks of Jesus on
our bodies?It looks like the dirt
lodged deep under a man’s fingernails because, instead of going golfing, he
gave up a Saturday afternoon to do yard work for an elderly neighbor.It looks like the dark circles around a
young mother’s eyes as her three little kids climb onto to and off of her
lap—she and her husband recognizing that children are not a burden, but a
blessing.It looks like the
priest in a tattered clerical shirt, who realized a parishioner needed new
clothes more than he did.It looks
like the woman who, despite the pain, always leaves chemotherapy smiling
because any day lived with and in and for Jesus is the very best day of her
life.

It’s good for us to reflect, “How might I bear the marks of
Jesus on my body?”But let’s do
so, not in some hypothetical way, but specifically and concretely—and not about
something we might eventually get to, but something that we can do today,
tomorrow, or this week.Just
remember: if you’re going to imitate Jesus, then you’d better be willing to pay
the price.

Mary, Virgin and Mother

We fly to your patronage,O holy Mother of God;despise not our petitions

in our necessities,but deliver us from all evil,O glorious and blessed Virgin.

Saint Joseph

Pray for us!

"St. Joseph was

an ordinary sort of man

on whom God relied

to do great things."

--St. Josemaria Escriva

Saint Barnabas

Pray for us!

"...Joseph,

also named by the apostles Barnabas

(which is translated

son of encouragement)..."

--Acts 4:36

Saint Bruno

Pray for us!

"Only those who have experienced

the solitude and silence

of the wilderness

can know the benefit and divine joy

they bring to those who love them."

--St. Bruno

(1030-1101)

Saint Francis of Assisi

Pray for us!

"You should never let anyone

leave your presence in sadness."

--St. Francis of Assisi

(1181-1226)

Saint Philip Neri

Pray for us!

"A servant of God

ought always to be happy."

--St. Philip Neri

(1515-1595)

Saint John Francis Regis

Pray for us!

"No violence of cold, no snows...,

no mountains, or torrents...,

could be an obstacle to his zeal."

--comment of a contemporary

of St. John Francis Regis

(1597-1640)

Saint John Mary Vianney

Pray for us!

"Our faults

are like grains of sand

next to the great mountain

of the mercies of God."

--St. John Vianney

(1786-1859)

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

Pray for us!

"The value of life does not depend

upon the place we occupy;

it depends upon the way

we occupy that place."

--St. Thérèse of Lisieux

(1873-1897)

Saint André Bessette

Pray for us!

"It is with the smallest brushes

that the Artist paints

the most exquisitely

beautiful pictures."

--St. André Bessette

(1845-1937)

Blessed Charles de Foucauld

Pray for us!

"The absence of risk

is a sure sign

of mediocrity."

--Blessed Charles de Foucauld

(1858-1916)

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati

Pray for us!

"The higher we go,

the better we shall hear

the voice of Christ."

--Blessed Pier Girogio Frassati

(1901-1925)

Saint John Paul II

Pray for us!

"Up to the evening of your life

remain in wonder and gratitude

for that mysterious call

which one day echoed

in the depths of your spirit:

Follow me!”

--Blessed John Paul II

(1920-2005)

Keep smiling!

“I’m not a man who constantly thinks up jokes. But I think it’s very important to be able to see the funny side of life and its joyful dimension and not to take everything too tragically. I’d also say it’s necessary for my ministry. A writer once said that angels can fly because they don't take themselves too seriously. Maybe we could also fly a bit if we didn’t think we were so important.”